Newsflash: The War on Terror is Real

The big news today would be Terror, with a capital T.
'They Are Going to Attack and Hit Us Hard'Sources: Major terror attack possible this summerTerror fear Agents in Country Said To Be Planning Attack
Am I suprised? Not at all. Scared? You bet. Then again, I've been scared since September 11, 2001. However, two and half years have gone by and we have yet to be attacked again on American soil.
Today's frightening headlines are brought to in you part by an International Institute of Strategic Studies report stating (pdf format) that al Qaeda still has 18,000 members.
The spin that followed went in two different directions, depending on your outlook. What's not up for argument is that the Iraq war has strengthened the terrorist base in the Middle East. Where paths diverge is when you ask why.
The left will maintain that our occupation of Iraq has so angered the Arab world that they signed up by the thousands to join the jihad against America.
I am going to beg to differ.
The people who joined the ranks of al Qaeda (and I will say that while the report states AQ has 18,000 members, it's a good bet that most of those members are recent inductees) and other terrorist organizations since March of 2003 were jihadists beforehand. They were in the death-to-America camp long before we landed in Iraq. But the gathering of forces in Fallujah, Pakistan and other hotspots gave these sideline terrorists strength by numbers. Muqtada al-Sadr and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are no different that Jim Jones or David Koresh, in that they have cult-like followings, people following them blindly into battle. The battles themselves, even the enemies may be different, but in the end, the loyalists of both men will meet the same fate as the followers of Jones and Koresh. Who deals that fate out - their own leaders or their enemies - is all that remains to be seen.
While the war in Iraq has certainly been a catalyst for jihad recruitment, let's not delude ourselves (I'm looking at the left here) into thinking that the hatred and death wishes did not exist beforehand. Which makes the Iraq war less of a reason and more of an excuse. Some of these terrorists have been sharpening their knives for years, just waiting for that moment when they could rise up with thousands of others and whoop their war cries. Iraq is it. al-Sadr knows this. al-Zarqawi knows this. If bin Laden is still alive, he knows it. Every jihad leader worth their 72 virgins fully understands that the war in Iraq is the opportunity of a lifetime; it's like Bill Gates getting an invitation to the graduation ceremony of The School For Brilliant Computer Programmers. It's a grand buffet of potential employees. And that's what Iraq is to Arab terrorists; a buffet. The leaders are lining up and filling their plates, even coming back for seconds. Them's good eatings! I swear I overheard someone say that once at a buffet
So, while Iraq is not the reason for the upswing in threat theory, it is the central force at play here. I'm pretty sure that most of the recent al Qaeda recruits don't give a damn about what we are doing in Iraq. They just want to be where the action is; they just want to be part of the game. And the game is getting huge.
Their hatred for us - and thus, their death wishes upon us - did not begin with the start of the invasion of Iraq. I think that should be obvious to anyone who lives with their head above the sand. You can go back to February 1993, but that's just a stopping point on the long, long timeline of the Arabs v. U.S. World Tour. We could take you back to 1983 if you'd like, too. How about 1979? Different factions, you say? Different countries? Different terrorist groups? Yes, but no.
It's all related. It's all steeped in the history of radical Islam, in the history of militant Arabs - a history of a movement that demands a call to arms against the west and against Israel.
Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing more than giant gathering places for all these factions to come together and join up for the same cause. Think of it as a reverse Lord of the Rings, where a combination of races and tribes spend generations battling together against Sauron. Here, we have a combination of countries and terrorists groups battling together against America. Combine forces. Work together. You can strike the enemy harder and faster that way. So into battle they go, finally learning that singularly, they probably could not launch a great attack against their common enemy, but together they can finally conquer that bastard. Which would be us.
Us. That includes you with the anti-war sign. And you, with your conspiracy theories. It includes whether you are voting for Bush or Kerry, whether you drive an SUV or a hybrid, whether you listen to Hannity or Franken. It includes those of you who don't care about politics, who don't watch the news. We are their enemy. Do you think that Sauron would have taken the time to find out if anyone was sympathetic to him before he unleashed his evil army upon the tribes? Hardly. Which is why it really is an us v. them world.
Usama bin Laden's network appears to be operating in more than 60 nations, often in concert with local allies... The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought Al Qaeda recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said.
Hmm. Do you still want us to leave Iraq? Still want us to pack up our troops and go home? I'd venture to say that most of those Islamic fighters are hanging out in Fallujah and Najaf, using mosques, shrines and holy cemeteries as their base. Should we attack any of those places, we're the bad guys. Never mind that the people who want to burn down America are hiding in those holy sites. We can't go after them, lest we be labeled the aggressors.
Meanwhile, they are making plans, signing up new recruits, combining forces, sharing weapons and plans and generally becoming the lone horseman of our apocalypse. All right under our nose, in the countries that we our currently occupying. Yet so many want us to leave those countries. So many think we are wrong for being there, that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, that Afghanistan is a waste of our time. A little wake up call might be in order, but I do not wish for your wake-up call to come in the form of an explosion.
I do not want to leave the investigation and rooting out of terrorists and discovery of potential terrorists plots to the FBI or CIA. Sure, they've been doing a pretty good job (when they haven't been arresting the wrong people). All those flights that were grounded back in the winter showed me that our intelligence is working, but I think this war on terror has been stripped down to the most primitive level. It's not intelligence alone that will save us. It's the war that will, in the end, save us from doom. While all these forces are gathered in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably Pakistan, we need to let our troops loose to do the right thing. The right thing is? Protecting us from the what ifs that rattle inside our heads every time we watch the news or read a paper.
"There is clearly a steady drumbeat of information that they are going to attack and hit us hard," said another senior federal counterterrorism official, who described the intelligence as highly credible.
The summer of 2002 was what I called the Summer of Fear:

Summer of Fear. That's what this is. No matter how much you say you do not fear them, you don't believe the hype, you don't watch the news, I am willing to bet that the drone of a crop duster flying over your house will send you running for a gas mask. I'm willing to bet that you feel it. You feel the blanket of unease that our own security agencies have covered us with.
I'm waiting for the comic book ending. For the superheroes to band together and form an alliance and kick the shit out their enemies. Or at least foil their evil plans and put us all back into our safe, comfortable place, where panic doesn't spark the air, where our lives don't exist in a constant state of electricity, like we just collectively stepped on a third rail.

That was when the terror alert changed nearly every day, where every morning brought another new warning, another shout to be vigilant, be alert. Hell, I couldn't be more alert if stuck toothpicks in my eyes.
Two years later, I still believe in superheroes. I still believe we will win the war on terror. But you have to let us win it. You cannot stand between our troops and a holy shrine if that shrine is crawling with people plotting terror attacks. It doesn't even matter if the plans they are drawing out are against us, or Israel or the citizens of Baghdad who are just trying to find some kind of good life. Because we are all part of the same coalition, the same combined force of tribes and nations that are gunning for the bad guys.
So, what to do with these headlines today? Do I cower? Do I end up the way I did in 2002, with a case of agoraphobia? Or do I trust that we will prevail?
Choosing trust is much more relaxing, I'll tell you that. It's better than fearing planes and avoiding trains and dreaming of underground bunkers and rockets red glare landing at my feet.
Yes, they are coming for us. Well, they are going to try their damndest. And we cannot, and should not ever think of standing in the way of those who are going to protect us from them. We know where they are. They are in Afghanistan and they are in Iraq and, brace yourself, they are right here on our soil. Those who are already here are just waiting for instructions. It is our job to cut down those who are supposed to give those instructions out. It is our job to cut the ties between here and there and that means mainly striking them over there.
To cut and run from Iraq now would be to lose the war on terror. I don't think that's what you want, is it? Ridicule all you want. Choose your theories. Ignore at will. Laugh, point finger and call it all a lie. What does it take to make some people see that the war on terror is real, that our enemies are not a result of the Iraq war, but the result of a culture war.
I suppose that if 3,000 dead in one day didn't convince them, nothing will. But you can bet that if a bomb ever dropped on their neighborhood, they would be the first ones crying that we didn't take the war on terror seriously enough.
I hope it never comes to that. I hope we never have to say we were right about the terrorists coming for us. And if they never come, to the left it will all have been a bold lie, rather than a good job done by those fighting the terror war.
I am not going to spend my summer hiding under the bed again. I am going to trust that we will get this war won, despite those who want to stand in our way. That's not to say I'm not scared because I still shake in my boots some days, especially when I think about the Olympics. But I am not as convinced of the coming Armageddon of America as I used to be. A lot has changed in the two years since the Summer of Fear. Main thing is, I figured out who the real enemy is, and it's not us. Those guys coming toward us with swords raised and torches blazing? splinter cells and offshoots make for one pretty big army of darkness coming at us. I hope that we have the strength to take them down.

» Connecting The Dots from Wizbang
Item 1: Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday. Item 2: The Energy... [Read More]

» Politics-Free update from Arguing with signposts...
Well, it's been over a month since I gave up politics on the site. (read "I Give Up" for a refresher) How's it gone so far? Good and bad. Let's look at the three parts of the pledge: I will... [Read More]

Comments

I kind of agree with John Hawkins about the 18,000 number. There's no membership roll for this organization.

That said, even if we crawled back home with our butts between our legs, that wouldn't stop the terrorist threat. That's what some people don't get. I don't see the al Qaeda ever packing it up and saying, "well, we've met our goals. Time to stop blowing people up."

Scared, yea I am scared. But you know what, we always had some booggie man lurking around the corner. In my day, in the fifties and sixties, we had the cold war and they had the kids in the fourth grade hiding in coat closets and under desks because the Russians were coming... Hey, what will be, is what will be. Just gotta live day by day because there is not a damn thing we can do about it.

"I suppose that if 3,000 dead in one day didn't convince them, nothing will. But you can bet that if a bomb ever dropped on their neighborhood, they would be the first ones crying that we didn't take the war on terror seriously enough."

Unfortunately Michelle, it WILL take that for some people. And I would lump those who will not get it in with the enemy. That whole Orwell pacifists-are-objectively-pro-Fascist thing.

The 'boogey man' is real, unless that giant hole in the ground seen in the downtown area of Manhattan is simply a figment of my imagination.

I should rather spend my time worrying about the climatic global-warming/ice-age changes which are going to destroy the planet because of SUV's. Quick, hide under the desk, we are all going to drown or freeze to death. I am relieved Hollywood is around to tell us where we ought to focus our real concerns.

'The Day After Tommorrow" now that's reality.

But, a hole in the ground created by Islamic-fascists slamming airplanes into buildings is fiction.

You're right, syn. I went outside and started my SUV, and when I came back in to pick up the cellphone I'd forgotten, that ice I'd thrown into the sink was already melting. So I went back outside and shut off the truck. That'll help ;)

Most of us are old enough to remember the scare stories in the 70s of an ice age that's just around the corner. Then came the 80s, and we were going to roast in a few years. Now it's giant flying monkeys, or whatever.

Remember how a couple of years ago Hollywood took The Sum of All Fears and showed us how the international Nazi conspiracy was the thing to fear? Yeah, that's a biggie. Nazis everywhere, blowing up buses, beheading people, and...huh? Oh. Guess white supremacist groups aren't the big threat after all.

Michele, you seem to have a lot of time to write, but are you also taking time to read? To read Middle Eastern history, for example? These Islamo- fascists (to borrow from Hitchens) have not existed over the entire 1,400 year history of Islam. They emerged only over the last 50-80 years, and if you look at what was happening politically over the last 50-80 years, you will see that the Western powers started mucking around in their neighborhood. First, the Western powers created Iraq in the wake of WW1 and the Brits occupied it first. Suprise, surprise...an Iraqi insurgency rose up in 1920. The Brits left. At the same time, however, Zionists (that's not a pejorative, it refers to what Theodor Herzl's followers called themselves before the Arab radicals began using it) began to drive Palestinians off their land under threat of violence (yes, the Jews were the terrorists pre-1948) and also to make deals with the occupying British authorities (deals like the Balfour Declaration) and by the time 1948 rolled around something had to be done for the nationless Jewish people--the German Nazis had almost wiped out the Jews and many of those who fled Europe were discouraged from going to America by their very own leaders (read the book While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy by Arthur Morse) who wanted to re-establish a home in Palestine (a home where, by the way, the Jews had not lived for nearly 1,800 years). The U.N. agreed, and betraying promises the British had made to the Arabs in Palestine, Israel was created. Things might have settled down--you can argue that all Arabs are scum, but many Arabs and Jews had lived in peace in Palestine before there was an Israel--but for the 1967 War, in which Israel took Arab land that was not part of the U.N.'s deal. And Israel has yet to give that land back. Then the U.S. gives Israel $3 billion a year and turns a blind eye to the continuing land grabbing that Ariel Sharon is doing.
Go ahead, call me an anti-Semite. Sling your mud. Just don't listen to my logical arguments for why the Arab world hates the West.
Suicide bombers are a recent phenomenon, too.
Do you really think that the West's actions in the Middle East over the past century have not had consequences?
Ask yourself, why was Saddam's possession and use of chemical weapons not a concern for us during the Reagan years? Why do the Shias not trust us--could it be because we betrayed them at the end of the first Gulf War, allowed Saddam's forces to massacre them while we still had troops in Iraq and Kuwait?

And also ask yourself if we are really safer now under a Bush administration that has asked for $10 billion in missile defense technology and only $54 million for port security. An administration that does not support its own State Department in attempts to fight the war of ideas (a far more important, and longer lasting war than the military one, for anyone who has sense): the State Dept was recently revealed in a study to have only 54 Arab speakers. Only 54. Do you see a problem there?
But you don't question an administration that pulls troops and resources out of Afghanistan, where the Taliban are reconstituting, and concentrates them on Iraq, a nation which had no terrorists before our invasion (and don't play the Zarqawi card--sure, he went to Baghdad for medical treatment, but there are no provable or even rational links between Osama and Saddam).
You don't think that terrorist recruitment was helped by our invading and occupying a Middle Eastern country? Don't you know that that is EXACTLY what Osama said we would do? It's like we are fulfilling his evil prophecy.
I can see that your mind is made up. Pay no attention to experts: former counter terrorism chiefs, former military leaders like Anthony Zinni. Ignore those guys--they don't know what they're talking about. The terrorists would have been there anyway. Blame the Arabs for all their problems and all our problems. It's so much easier.
And let's watch as I get called all sorts of names and accused of hating America. Gee, what was I thinking--I actually thought I could have a discussion here.

But no, I'm an idiot and a bedwetting liberal and I don't know what I'm talking about.

"Us. That includes you with the anti-war sign. And you, with your conspiracy theories. It includes whether you are voting for Bush or Kerry, whether you drive an SUV or a hybrid, whether you listen to Hannity or Franken. It includes those of you who don't care about politics, who don't watch the news. We are their enemy."

Are you saying that if I had sent in a donation AND signed up to be a Human Shield, I still wouldn't be getting hints on what buildings to avoid on what days? Man, just when you think you have a plan...

There are just too many opportunities this summer for something NOT to happen. Or at least be attempted. My money's on the Olympics, I don't have a ton of confidence in that whole operation.

And whether we like it or not, if there is a successful attack, it will likely determine the outcome of the Presidential elections. Who wins will depend on the circumstances and outcome of the attack(s), however. Interesting times.

Let me chime in with the suspicions on the '18,000' number - that's based on an estimate of 20,000 put through the camps before the war in Afghanistan, minus the 2,000 or so that were supposedly morted during the war. One part simple math, one part headline grabbing scare journalism, viola.

Supposing the 20,000 number is even close to accurate - how many of them are still foaming at the mouth, ready to wrap little willie in gauze, then strap on a bomb to go for the raisins committed?

Sure, it only takes a few, and we've learned the hard way to be aware of and pay attention to 'spikes', and be more suspicious connecting dots - point is, we're a harder target than 2 years ago. And when we put out an alert - we get harder still. And they don't like hard targets. Lot easier to walk away as if nothing was up, and seethe some more in private, or pop out a fist waving video or two.

I am somewhat confused. I get that you want to talk about some issues, but are the issues about Arab-Jewish relations or your persecution as a bed-wetting liberal? You jump back and forth between the two so much I get lost. Also, could you please link the post or comments where you (or anyone else for that matter) got shut down for discussing why Arabs are mad at us? I couldn't find that in the search. Thanks.

Sorry, couldn't resist. OK Brad, you've sure laid out a nice argument for where we've fucked up, and are fucking up. What are your proposals to fix things? Wring our hands? Give the bad men what they want and hope they leave us alone? Debate it to death?

Sorry, I'll stick with taking the fight to them, and hoping that the hand wringers and big media don't surrender for us before the fight is finished.

Well, Brad, you gave us a history lesson but you fail to offer a solution. Do you really, really think if we left the ME that things would change? What should we do, what is your solution. Cower to the slime? Islam is no religion of peace and their mission is to spread the faith, if by the sword or the gun or the suicide bomb, doesn't seem to matter. They hate you lefties as much as anyone, perhaps more since you generally favor the things they hate most.

I'd much rather have the Islamofacist radicals congregate in Iraq and Afganistan and fight them there then wonder where they are and when they will strike. Regardless of the past, the genie is out of the bottle and we have to confront it, I'd rather we do that there than here. There is still a debt to be paid for the attack on America, the Japanese found out the terrible consequences of that long ago, Islamists have yet to learn that lesson. Let them continue to attack here and they will be breeding a new and less gentle leadership that will crush them and their religion in no uncertain terms.

IF al Qaeda really has 18,000 members AND operates in 60 countries THEN that averages to 300 per country.

First, lets count the bulletcatchers, al Qeada members who get handed a gun and told "try to kill someone before they kill you". You have to figure Osama has no less than 1000 surrounding him. You can imagine 2500 more in Iraq, and another 2500 in Algeria. That brings us down to 12,000 or 200 avg. per country.

Of that remaining, a large percentage of that HAS to be Intelligence gathering and analysis. Then you have communications, safe house operation, training camps, negotiators/bribers, recruiters, couriers (both people and info), smugglers, and donation solicitors. A lot of these jobs could overlap on the same people, but you wouldn't want a safe house operator or the guy that smuggles weapons in to be soliciting donations. Then you have to account for the video production division (didn't they winn at Cannes?).

Yeah, the Arab world hated Western involvement in their affairs, except for the time in which Saddam invaded Kuwait.

The Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians(2 billion a year in aid), the Syrians and so forth, were scared shitless of Saddam and now these same Arabs hate the West for removing him.

I have an Egyptian friend who immigrated to America eight years ago because he hated the fact that his country had nothing to offer his people. I would venture to guess his feelings are prevelant amoung many who live in the Middle East as witnessed by the overwhelming amount of Arabs who are continuing to migrate their way to the West.

Why do we insist on blaming Isreal for causing all Middle Eastern problems?

Lets try to distill this in terms even you should be able to understand:

There are people in the world who want to kill you (not for any particular reason, or really who cares why). You have two choices:

Kill them first, or be killed yourself. Is that simple enough? You can't talk with them, reason with them, or buy them off.

It is a sad state of affairs.....I agree. But the fact remains:

There are just some people in the world that just need killing.....the Islamofacists think it's us....we think it's them. For twenty years or so, they have been doing this on a consistent basis (I base this beginning with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut). We have talked, given them money, dicked around with the UN, to now avail. So now it comes down to this.....they want the chance to kill Americans, we are giving it to them. And I might say it was very nice of us to travel all they way to their backyard to make it easier on them. Given the chance, they will come here. It is not a matter of if, but when. So the best thing to do is to KILL THEM FASTER than they can kill us. Pretty simple 'eh?

So while you are wringing your hands, they are planning your death. If you think that just because you are critical of US policies present and past that they will spare you....you fucking stupider than I originally gave you credit for. They might kill you last.....but you will get it in the end just like GWB if they are given the chance.

As for me....I spent some quality time at the range last night. Practicing 300 yard headshots with my .308 (thats 7.62 Nato)on the off chance that God forbid, one day they decide to have a little party right here. So you have two choices, join their side and hope they will kill you last, or load some ammo. If you manage to hook up with your "buddies" just wave real hard so I don't shoot you by mistake......

I think the 18,000 figure is kinda suspect, but it also is kinda irrelevant to the big picture anyhow.

The majority of al Qaeda "camp trainees," as I understand it, aren't particularly skilled, most of them just getting generic paramilitary training to fight against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Most of them are probably just skilled enough to be cannon fodder, probably. Now, cannon fodder has some value, especially when you're a medieval death cult, but it doesn't necessarily give you all that much if you're trying to plan and execute a complex international covert operation. The number I'd be most interested in are the people who have the skills and means to do that. But on yet another hand, that number doesn't have to be all that large to be able to do serious damage.

And yet another point is that just counting the number of people who have "official al Qaeda membership cards" or whatever from attending their schools sort of misses the point in another way. By design (and you can read all about their M.O. from publicly available documents used as evidence in the earlier WTC bombing trial), one of al Qaeda's main strategies is inspirational. Not solely to build up the "official" al Qaeda terrorist network and execute operations, but also to inspire like-minded people to set up their own networks - with assistance from "the base" when desirable and feasible, but on their own if not. And that's nearly as good from their perspective.

One thing I find annoying about some amateur analysts is that they seem to think only people with official al Qaeda membership cards personally signed and authenticated with a holographic seal by Mr. Osama B. Laden, CEO of al Qaeda Enterprises, Inc., are worth worrying about (or "guilty" enough that we're "allowed" to track them down.) It's more complicated than that - as al Qaeda always intended.

Thanks, Michele. My defensiveness originated 20 years ago when I used to get beat up in high school for telling bullies that it was in their best interest to leave me alone.
Skillzy and Bill OH, I won't act like I know the solution for all these problems. Despite my lecturing rant I'm not about to say I have the answer. But history teaches us what not to do, and if you look at how Israel has responded to their terrorism problem over the past 50 years, you can see that a military aggressiveness into the occupied territories has not curtailed Palestinian terrorists. Instead it has inflamed the Arab world. I do not blame Israel for all Middle Eastern problems: but if the U.S. took a greater interest in bringing the two sides together, and acted like an honest broker toward problem of Israel and the Palestinians (instead of siding with Sharon and giving him everything he wants), then that would be a good start.

This struggle (and by criticizing Bush's approach this does not mean that I trivialize the war, or that I side with the terrorists) is more than one of killing terrorists. Because there is not a finite number of terrorists. They are recruited from areas where there is oppression: the Gaza strip, for example. Imagine the long term results of the U.S. forcing the Israelis to give up some land for peace--something which Sharon has resisted.
What we have to do is win the war of ideas--win the hearts and minds of the ordinary Arabs who currently are against us because they see us as oppressors and occupiers and Zionists.

He says Can 21st century terrorism really be linked to a creed developed in the mid-18th century? To answer that question, one must look not just at Wahhabism's profound influence in modern Saudi Arabia, but also at Saudi Wahhabism's ties to outbursts of violence throughout its history. Specifically, Wahhabi Islam provided the backdrop for three waves of extreme militancy that resulted in terrible atrocities in the Middle East.

The first wave came in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when Wahhabism revived the Islamic idea of jihad as military expansionism - a concept that had fallen out of favor with traditional Islam after the early Muslim conquests. Wahhabism also broke with Islamic tradition by legitimizing jihad against other Muslims.

You say: if you look at what was happening politically over the last 50-80 years, you will see that the Western powers started mucking around in their neighborhood.

Wrong again. We were always mucking around in their neighborhood, and they mucked around in ours. One terrorist group, the Wahhabis, has existed for hundreds of years. The more recent militant group, the Salafis, (about 50 yrs old) bases their homicidal jihad on the writings of Sayyed Qutb, The Philosopher of Islamic Terror, who created his thesis when he visited America. He was horrified by western decadence when he witnessed a dance taking place in the basement of a Methodist church. Men and women touching each other in a holy place. So, in fact, modern terrorism was formed when Islamists started mucking around in our neighborhood.

The philosophy of these extremists is a philosophy of extermination and oppression. Their goal is to impose pre-medieval Shariah law on, well, basically on anyone who will let them impose it. Shariah law does not prohibit slavery, and the penalty under Shariah for converting from Islam is death. I believe that even National Socialism didn’t officially allow slavery. In effect, Shariah, those pre-medieval laws which have existed in Islam for many hundreds of years, is worse than fascism.

By the way, they’re hoping to take over bedwetting-lefty central, Berkeley, despite the fact that Berkeleyites are the most anti-Semitic intellectuals in the country (and that’s saying a lot).

Speaking of blaming the Arabs for their problems, can you explain why Arab culture is still stuck in the sixth century, while every other culture in the world has far surpassed them?

Brad sez: But history teaches us what not to do, and if you look at how Israel has responded to their terrorism problem over the past 50 years, you can see that a military aggressiveness into the occupied territories has not curtailed Palestinian terrorists.

But Israel is still here. Their military aggressiveness has resulted in survival.

Does anyone else remember the conservative estimate of hard-core splodydopes after 9/11???

Roughly 10% of the population. Another 5-15%, I can't remember. which supports the splodydopes.

1 billion muslims.

You do the math. 18K is nothing, can do a lot of damage, but nothing.

Oh, and Brad? History?? Only in the past 80 years?

No, fascism is a western word for what they've practiced for 1500 years. The only difference is communication.

They emerged only over the last 50-80 years, and if you look at what was happening politically over the last 50-80 years, you will see that the Western powers started mucking around in their neighborhood.

They're still pissed over losing Spain. Any land where they were is still considered Islamic. They were to the gates of Vienna. The ME was once Christian. Wonder how they'd like it if we said we want it back? They had no problem mucking around in our neighborhood. Took 200 years before we finally got them out of Spain.

Some clerics and a schoolbook or 2 preach that the US and Australia are also Islamic, they got here before others.

80 years ago they got radios, flight, things that gave them contact w/the West. They consider these things mucking around in their neighborhood. Western thought/exposure is mucking around in their neighborhood. Women getting education is mucking around in their neighborhood. So we should just let them be cos that's the way they are? Coke/Mickey D's is mucking around in their neighborhood.

It's time for their reformation.

I don't recall the early Christians writing in their books that their religion should - is mandated - to be spread by the sword, but I could be wrong. (Lucky for us there were no guns then.)

Death if you leave Islam, death or slavery unless you're a people of the book, if you don't accept Islam. That's not recent history.

mary's right, Sad Brad: there's been a strains of militant jihadism in Islam almost since the beginning. It's never been the dominant strain, but it was always there and it was always trouble, and the Wahhabis have been like this for more than two centuries.

Yes, it's true that the militants have been a problem for the West mostly since (1) they started having more contact with the West and (2) technology made it easier for them to travel here bringing terror while clinging to their medieval worldview. I would particularly stress #2; you can dish out all the Marxist economic determinism you like, but Occam's Razor should tell you why there were no suicide bombers before there were bombs and why there were no airplane hijackings before there were airplanes.

Michele - Another common thread not to forget among the Islamists and the secular pan-Arabists is that they all recycle the same anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda (some of which is the same stuff that American Leftists have fallen for). A lot of that propaganda was originally generated by the Nazis and the Communists (read some of the stuff by former Eastern European and Russian intelligence agents about how they spoon-fed stuff to Arafat, or consider how the Islamists make use of European propaganda like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion). It's similarly true that many of the leaders, especially the secular ones, either modeled themselves after or were actively supported by the Nazis and the Communists, Arafat and Saddam being prime examples.

Which helps explain a bit more about the modern jihadists and why they end up making common cause with pan-Arab socialists - they may have ancient roots, but they've all got the same basic historical narrative to draw from, and Americans and Israelis are the villains.

You take a large leap in assumption that terrorists are recruited from Gaza because they are oppressed as you put it. By that definition there are oppressed individuals world-wide yet we do not see the same type of behavior. Could it possibly be the culture they live in? Does any other culture in this world preach as much hatred at such a young age as the "oppressed" people of Gaza?

The other misstatement of fact is that Isreal suffers less aggressiveness from terrorists when they are militarily aggressive themselves. In just about every instance Isreal has pulled back and taken a more passive approach they suffer an attack against civilians.

You focus on the last few years of the history of the middle east. Perhaps you should look back a bit further. Like, say, 1683. Second seige of Vienna. Or maybe 732. Battle of Poiters. This is not a relatively new phenomenon.
Oh and maybe look up the origin of the word assassin. Suicide attacks are nothing new, either.

The problem is not whether the war on terrorism is legitimate or not. The problem is how to pursue the war on terrorism.

To portray liberals as against the war on terrorism is a lie. There are probably more liberals in New York City proportionately than in other cities in the counry. I live there. New York was hit the hardest on 9/11. I saw the Twin Towers go down with my own eyes. Don't think that we are not worried about terrorism. We think about it every day. We are not stupid about what needs to be done.

Most likely, New York will directly pay the consequences when the next massive terrorist attack arrives.

Therefore, I find it upsetting when I hear people support policies that I feel will make things more dangerous for me and the country.

The question is: Has the Bush administration pursued the war on terrorism wisely ?

I think not.

Afghanistan was a no-brainer. We had been attacked by elements that were established there. From that point, we could have garnered support from nations all over the world to start clandestine operations to behead the terrorist networks. Cut off the terror funding. Attack the true sources of terrorism : poverty, ignorance and a lack of self esteem in the countries that breed fanatics ( The latter is difficult to do, but if we can spend 100 billion or more in Iraq, perhaps that money might have been better spent building bridges of peace to other nations.)

But the war in Iraq is a different story.

If you remember, Iraq did not attack us. They did not even threaten to attack us. But we attacked the country anyway. We rushed in there headlong without any backup plans. (Well, there were backup plans but the administration threw them out because they knew better. And their man Chalabi, the bank fraud convict, promised them ou soldiers would be greeted with flowers.). There is plenty of evidence that AT BEST the administration was INTENTIONALLY IGNORING any advice by the Pentagon and State Department about the existence of WMD and how to hold the country together once the occupation began. And they were ACTIVELY DISTORTING or cherry-picking evidence to support the inaccurate conclusions they had already arrived at.

So now our military and domestic resources are spread thin:

We had to pull men out of Afghanistan and the Taliban is reconstituting there.

Real terroist threats are emerging from North Korea and Pakistan but we are distracted from them.

Insurgents are entering Iraq. It is turning into the terrorist state in never was.

Atrocities in prisons are being committed in the name of America, against the Iraqis who we supposedly came to liberate. Why are we torturing the people we came to save? (Plus: these prisoners had yet to be convicted of anything. The Red Cross estimates that 90 percent of people in the prisons were/are innocent). For that matter, there is a great body of evidence that supports the fact that torturing does not work. And more evidence is coming out that this policy was widespread and encouraged by Rumsfeld, et al., despite their denials.

Our unilateral actions have alienated most of the countries of the world. Guess what? You need friends. I realize that foreign policy is not a popularity contest. But if we had convinced the UN to go into Iraq with us, the occupation wouod have much more legitimacy -- and the USA might be less of a target for terrorists. (Of course, we did not get the UN support because WE WERE WRONG! )

We have abandoned the Geneva Conventions. If you think this was a good idea, I think you have drunk a little bit too much of the Kool Aid.

Terrorists who already hated us will continue to do so. But those who were on the sidelines are being invigorated and drawn in. Those who hoped that America stood for goodness are changing their minds. It seems like America just stands for power over others. The power to humiliate and to bend the world to its will.

This might be so.

We are spending billions of dollars on this war. The nation has the largest deficit in its history. This accompanies the largest tax break in our history for the wealthy. Never in the history of civilization is there a recorded tax-break in a time of war. We are running out of money for homeland defense and other domestic priorities. New York City get less money per capita to fight terrorism than Wyoming.

If you think the administration is so hell-bent on fighting terrorism, why did they let members of the bin Laden and Saudi families fly out of the USA on private jets on 9/13/01 without questioning first by the CIA or the FBI ? In the world I used to live in, we would be proud that we held them for questioning -- nobody is above the law. Perhaps it was an error on the administration's part to let them go. But how many errors can you handle before it becomes a record of incompetence?

Hey Mary, re your comment, "One terrorist group, the Wahhabis, has existed for hundreds of years"
Congratulations! You just called the Saudi regime a terrorist regime.
I agree with Dore Gold that "the Saudi regime must stop using its large Wahhabi charities to fund terrorist groups, once and for all"
Too bad George Bush has so far all but ignored this source of terror. Could it be that Craig Unger and Michael Moore are right?

By the way, Sayyed Qutb's influence is more proof that this Islamo fascism is recent , not ancient.

Ray: "You focus on the last few years of the history of the middle east. Perhaps you should look back a bit further. Like, say, 1683. Second seige of Vienna. Or maybe 732. Battle of Poiters. This is not a relatively new phenomenon.
Oh and maybe look up the origin of the word assassin. Suicide attacks are nothing new, either". Ray, I fail to see how the Muslim origin of the word "assassin" proves that suicide bombing is NOT a recent phenomenon. Apparently you think that all peoples of all Muslim cultures (and there are many--the majority of them are in non-Arab Indonesia) are blood thirsty killers, and that the only way to respond to a small percentage of their violent fanatics is with violence. Well, it ain't working.

Sandy, I recommend reading some of the works of John Esposito. Start with this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195157133/qid=1085593226/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-1161939-6355264
Although something tells me your mind is made up and it would be asking too much to think in more complex terms.

It would seem to most of you we only have two choices: kill or be killed.
This implies that the only way to win the war is to continue the tough military stance we have, to not back down, correct? To not leave Iraq, but take on the terrorists there.

So let me pose a new question: IF the terrorists attack us in this country again, this summer (which was the original topic of Michele's post), is that a sign that Bush is doing a good job or a bad job fighting the war?

If your answer is: it is a sign of NEITHER the above, because we cannot control what the terrorists do and an attack is INEVITABLE, then I submit to you that your continuing support of troop presence in Iraq is STUPID. How can we send our national guard troops to the "central front of the war on terror" if we are likely to get attacked here, where the national guard might be needed to sustain the pece after a dirty bomb goes off in a major city?
Sept 11 was Clinton's fault, right? So
I want to know how you will justify voting for Bush in November if we are confronted with a major domestic terror attack.

And so they trot out every single example of human atrocity as if they were Atticus Finch sweating under the heat in that courtroom in their mind; these snipers and critics and ‘activists’ who have no plans of their own, no solutions, no answers to these dirty and difficult and eternal issues, and so sit in the warm cocoon of perfection afforded the man who attempts nothing. And while better men and women – better men and women by every measure – struggle and fight and bleed to make the world a better and safer place, they grow more and more disconnected from the essential ugliness and brutality that is half – and only half – of this flawed and broken and hopeful and noble human existence.

Second Bill quote:

Don’t argue with them, don’t engage them. They want to make this about rhetoric and sophistry, which they fetishize, and not about the simple difference between right and wrong, which is a world where they cast no reflection.

Brad your history is wrong (or at least incomplete) on several points, the most egregious of which is your assertion that Jews did not live in what is now Israel for 1800 years. It's hard to take anything you say seriously after that.

I think what we have here is a clash of civilizations, which is hardly news to anyone here. Contact with the West has led some people in the Middle East to long for Western prosperity and freedom, and to embrace Western ways (at least partially). This is intolerable to some of their countrymen, who have latched onto the most destructive force in human nature: the quest for purity. The Nazis believed that Germany would be great again if only it could purge itself of the "contamination" of non-Aryans. The Communists believed they could build a perfect society if they could only eradicate greed and ambition from the human soul. And the Islamists believe they can recreate Paradise if only they can first, force their co-religionists to adopt a "pure" form of Islam (c.f. the Taliban, who worked harder at this than anyone), and second, carry this purified Islam to all corners of the globe.

They believe, quite literally, that they are carrying out God's work as they do so. There will be no negotiating with this.

The September 11 attacks were, allegedly, being planned for years, even as we tried to broker some kind of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and before we were conducting any war in the Middle East. They hate us -- and everyone who doesn't share their bizarro, bloody world view -- because their extremist belief system is morally and spiritually bankrupt. Worrying about the "whys" and "wherefores" of such people's behavior is pointless.

And don't be afraid. That's what they want. That's why their called "terrorists." You've got one life, why spend it being afraid. There are worse things than death. Living in fear is one of them.

But how can killing Iraqis make things safer? They aren't the people who attacked us. Does it make you feel better to kill people indiscriminately when you are scared ? I don't think this is a good idea.

"If you think the administration is so hell-bent on fighting terrorism, why did they let members of the bin Laden and Saudi families fly out of the USA on private jets on 9/13/01 without questioning first by the CIA or the FBI "

This has be debunked so many times I am surprised you even mention it. Let's ask Richard Clarke what he thinks of that. He says he authorized the flights out on Sept 20th. Now maybe you can change the argument to reflect what really happened but what you wrote is just so much plastic turkey.

"New York City get less money per capita to fight terrorism than Wyoming."

Ahh the useless stat, 500,000 vs. 8-9M....what is the difference per capita? Why does per capita spending matter in terms of homeland security? That's kind of like screaming about the price of gas in today's dollar or exhorting the latest blockbuster $ figures without figuring in inflation or number of theaters.

"This accompanies the largest tax break in our history for the wealthy."

Bigger than Reagan? I'm not so sure about that.

" In the world I used to live in, we would be proud that we held them for questioning -- nobody is above the law."

Really? The world we used live in and you were proud of required that someone's family is accountable for their crime? I thought you lefties were screaming bloody murder of US personel grabbing Saddam's buddies families and questioning them.

"Listen and understand! That islamofascist splodeydope is out there! He can't be bargained with, he can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and he absolutely will not stop--ever!--until you are dead!"

All the whinging about how our invasion of Iraq has pissed off the "Arab street" is laughable. Are they angrier than they were on September 10, 2001? Anyone who tries to tell me that the Iraqi man in the street hates us for ending decades of state-sanctioned and mandated tyranny, rape, torture and murder can expect me to laugh in his face. Those who hate us now hated us before; this is just the most recent excuse.

"I want to know how you will justify voting for Bush in November if we are confronted with a major domestic terror attack."

I haven't decided who to vote for but Kerry has not exactly been encouraging. He talks about kissing the ass of the French and Germans. He talks semi-tough about the Saudis but he won't do anything about it(because in reality there is little any President can do short of overthrowing the Royal family). He is so "nuanced" he has almost zero leadership cred. What does the guy stand for? Anything?

If we are hit again, what will Kerry do different? Consulting with the UN just doesn;t cut it. Kofi is a piece of shit. He was a piece of shit on Rwanda, He's a piece of shit for UNSCAM. I really want to know what Kerry would do in the event of an attack? Alot of people said thank god for Bush instead of Gore. I don't think that. Gore had shown a willingness to use military force. He was actually a moderate Dem before Gore version 4.0 "The Lefty Populist" edition was released. But Kerry? I just don't know.

The Dem missed the boat by not nominating Edwards...he would be CRUSHING Bush right now. I voted for Edwards in the primary and I would have loved to see him at the top of the ticket.

Our unilateral actions have alienated most of the countries of the world.

How many countries need to join the Coalition before it's no longer "unilateral"? Would France be sufficient, or are there others? Do you believe it's a coalition of the bribed and coerced? If so, how do Chirac's efforts in Africa (where he may have coerced or bribed the votes of African SC members) bear on your evaluation---i.e., is it not possible that members of the UNSC were bribed and coerced into voting against us?

Do you believe that the UN is really the moral, disinterested conscience of humanity? Or is UN approval just useful ass-covering? That is to say, if we had been able to bribe or coerce enough of the non-permanent members of the UNSC, would that automatically make our cause just? And that therefore failure to offer sufficient bribes and coercion automatically makes it unjust?

And if you do believe that the UN constitutes some sort of moral body, how do you account for the Oil-for-Food scandal? It's possible that morally upright UN officials opposed the war because they were getting rich off the sanctions regime. It's also possible that others would get rich off of sweet contracts they had with Saddam, contracts that may not be valid if he were no longer in charge. Do you think these things had absolutely no bearing on the actions of the UN?

I had a lot more to say, but then I read this:

But how can killing Iraqis make things safer? They aren't the people who attacked us. Does it make you feel better to kill people indiscriminately when you are scared ?

If this is truly what you think is happening, then you have the understanding of a child, and are unworthy of any further argument. If you are only phrasing it this way because you believe acting childishly somehow bolsters your argument, you are mistaken.

Angie, who are the Islamists that are in a "quest for purity" as you say? Are all 1 billion of them evil? Should we just wipe them all out or should we try to convert a few million of them to the right religion?
Jeff seems to want to wipe them all out.

Who gives a rats ass when militant islam was born?
Who gives a rats ass when the West started mucking around in the Middle East?
Who gives a rats ass if they call themselves Al Quaeda, Jihadis, wahhabis, whatever?

Fact of the matter is that wherever they were born or wahtever they call themselves, they want to kill us. They want to eradicate our way of life. All they want is an end to us. Period. There's no "No buts" here.

Think Kerry will do a better job that Bush battling them? Fine, come November cast your vote and pray. Pray not only that you win, but that your candidate has what it takes to finish them before they finish us.

There is no reasoning with people that want to kill you. There's no bargains or talks or accords. They want you dead, and if you cant see that, if you cant understand that, then... well...you really are leading a sad parade of fools.

You wrote:
"Ray, I fail to see how the Muslim origin of the word "assassin" proves that suicide bombing is NOT a recent phenomenon. Apparently you think that all peoples of all Muslim cultures (and there are many--the majority of them are in non-Arab Indonesia) are blood thirsty killers, and that the only way to respond to a small percentage of their violent fanatics is with violence. Well, it ain't working."

I did not in any way say that all muslims were blood thirsty killers. You selective use of a small piece of relatively recent history ignores two indisputable facts. First, Islam has tried to violently expand repeatedly. Therefore, the fanatical radical muslim is not new. Second, the assassin reference - had you bothered to look up the history rather than accusing me of something I did not say - would have shown that the use of suicide attacks - using the best available weapon at the time - is also not a new phenomenon.

Brad: By your logic, the Battle of the Bulge proved that we shouldn't have invaded Europe, because it showed that the Nazis could still fight back even after Normandy. Don't have such a juvenile attention span. We can be making progress and still not have won. The road ahead is long, and the only way out is to go forward is through the worst of it.

While I don't think Bush has yet done enough about the Saudis, it's not as if he's ignored the Saudi charities, several of which DOJ has cracked down on. I'm persuaded by den Beste's analysis of why the Saudis have to be near the end of our list (I may be adding some here) - (1) we needed to go after Iraq so we no longer needed bases in Saudi Arabia and had more sources of oil not in hostile hands; (2) given our historic alliance with the Saudis and the difficulty of confronting a state that includes Islam's Two Holy Places, it will take time to build the public case against them, (3) we have some hope of influencing the Saudi regime's behavior by virtue of the fact of an internal power struggle in the family while the king lies ill in Europe and the princes vie to shore up their respective power bases; and (4) given what a huge concentration of the nation's wealth is in the hands of the Saud family, Saudi Arabian society is more difficult to reform than that of almost any other state in the region.

Maybe we'll have to wait until Bush leaves office in 2009 to really put the hammer on the Saudis. I'm not fond of that possibility, but if we've made serious progress in Iraq, Iran and Syria by then, the next president will have the tools to do things Bush isn't currently free to do.

I am part of a Texas Group that has been invited to "perform" at the RNC one night late August. NYC/Garden/RNC looks too much of a target to pass up if I had a terrorist mind set. For a once in a lifetime event in the Big Apple in front of a national forum, I am wondering if I should be part of that event or take a pass. We have not signed the contract yet but it weighs heavy. So, I can respect the Athlete's decision in the face of heavy anti-terrorist protection force and hassles. Could I focus enough to perform at peak ability? Once you are in the arena it all gets shut out.
My problem involves taking an animal into that situation. Yes, I be there, if security at RNC thinks it safe for us.

I think Val just illustrated angie's "understanding of a child"...Val, who are we fighting against exactly? Are the Iraqis the same as the Saudis the same as the Pakistanis the same as al Qaeda? That's the real question.
Val's answer would be: WHO CARES--kill them all before they kill us. never mind common sense, which says that
we've got to pick our battles because our resources are not unlimited.

Speaking of resources: Ryan had posed an earlier (rhetorical) question: "Ahh the useless stat, 500,000 vs. 8-9M....what is the difference per capita? Why does per capita spending matter in terms of homeland security?" I'll answer it anyway with the following tidbit from Elizabeth Kolbert in the May 31 New Yorker magazine:

"Lawmakers decided that forty per cent of the money would be divided equally among the states, without regard to their needs or the likelihood that they would ever be attacked. The rest of the money was left for the Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, to disburse. He, too, declined to distribute funds on the basis of risk, deciding instead to follow the politically more expedient path of making awards solely on the basis of population. Taken together, the two sets of rules have had the perverse effect of actually penalizing New York. On a per-capita basis, the state currently ranks forty-ninth out of fifty in antiterror funding; while Wyoming receives $38.31 per person, New York gets $5.47.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some communities have had trouble coming up with credible uses for the windfalls they’ve received. Officials in Colchester, Vermont, for example, used their funds to buy a fifty-eight-thousand-dollar search-and-rescue vehicle capable of boring through concrete, to be used in case of a building collapse. The tallest building in Colchester—population eighteen thousand—has four stories."

Yeah Ryan..what's the difference?
Crank, your last paragraph has a really BIG IF in it. Wishful thinking indeed.

"The Big Apple can claim to have won at least one fight. At first, the plan was to distribute the money on a state-by-state basis, which would have given Wyoming, a state under little threat of jihad, $9.78 a head, and New York a pathetic $1.40. After a fierce lobbying effort, Tom Ridge, the man in charge of homeland security, has now announced that the money will be distributed according to the danger you face. Seven cities will share an extra $100m, to help with equipment and training."

Not much better. It doesn't change my original assertion. Simply stating Wyoming gets more per capita without stating the actual difference is of little use, is it not?

Angie, who are the Islamists that are in a "quest for purity" as you say? Are all 1 billion of them evil?

Disingenuity does not suit you any better than it does Dan. "Islamist" is not synonymous with "Muslim". Surely this does not need to stated over and over and over and over again? Islamists would include, but not be limited to, groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Should we just wipe them all out or should we try to convert a few million of them to the right religion?

The "right religion", as far as I'm concerned, would be the religion of Not Trying to Kill Me. Other than that, I don't give a damn what their religion is.

Brad, please dont put words in my mouth. I did not say kill them all. My comment was what does what they call themselves matter. Whether they are al queda, jihadis, mujahadeen, whhabis, whatever. They are TERRORISTS you fool. The US is doing a pretty good job of picking their battles. We arent out there arbitrarily killing Iraqis. Heck, if we didnt care about civilian casualties the war would have been over in a day. A few tactical nukes here and there and there would have been no insane clerics and crazed militants hiding among the population.

You know what, Brad? You can't hold a coherent discourse if you keep changing the subject and putting words into people's mouths. You color everything with your ideology. In Psychology it's called projection.

You read things that people write and interpret it to mean something YOU want to read or say.

Take your blinders off and try staying on the subject - and drop the (half)witty one-liners if you want to be taken seriously.

Maybe I'm taking on too many of you conservatives at once. Would someone give me a concrete example of how I took something someone wrote and misinterpreted it?
Val, you wrote, "Who gives a rats ass when militant islam was born?
Who gives a rats ass when the West started mucking around in the Middle East?" That is what I was essentially responding to--your complete uninterest in a historical perspective to our current crisis. Since "they" want to kill "us," I assume that "you" want "us" to kill "them." Of course, you won't define who "they" are. My guess is you don't really care; you're just angry and it's enough for you that we are kicking someone's ass over there.
Ditto Jeff: "Kill faster please!"

Ryan, here's the link to the New Yorker piece I quoted:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040531ta_talk_kolbert

Your original assertion--pls. correct me if I'm misinterpreting you--is that it doesn't matter that some cities are allocated more money than others to fight terror. And my response is: we know that New York isn't getting enough money. Police commissioner Ray Kelley testified to that effect last week. He says NYC needs $200 million. And
I think it's safe to say that Colchester, Vermont is not going to be attacked by terrorists anytime soon.

Thanks for the link....damn google tool bar couldn't find it even with exact quotes. Though I found the same info in the Daily News article I linked to.

My assertion dealt more with context(hence the reference to highest gas prices ever {nod to Easterbrook}and movie theater receipts). You gave that context in actual numbers. If WY was receiving a $1 more per cap, it's not that big a deal. $33 is another matter.

They arent killing us in history. It's happening right now, as we speak (so to speak). It simply doesnt do anyone any good to sit here and masturbate with the dates. The threat is now. Not one minute ago, but right now.

Terrorism needs to be addressed seriously now, so that when you have kids someday you'll be sure that they won't live like we've lived since 9/11.

You can defend these terrorists til youre blue in the face and it isnt going to change the fact that if they had the chance, they would kill you. Simply for being an American.

I already gave you a concrete example. You attributed what you wanted me to be thinking when I said nothing of the sort. Others have also pointed instances out to you.

Your "historical perspective" is extremely limited and skewed. And your reading of other people's comments is colored by your own ideology.

You can pontificate all you want, but it's awfully easy to criticize when you have no reponsibility.

So, anyway, go on with your self-appointed task of "taking on the conservatives". Sadly, I think you have no idea what that term really means (hint, it does not mean what you think it does). Nor do I self-identify as one.

Yea Syn, that hole in the ground on 9/11 was very real, but there was nothing that those 3000 people could have done to stop those planes from slamming into the towers. We just got to let George and his boys worry about them things. I pay my dues every year to live in this great country, and I expect to be protected. But that is all I can do. What will be, will be. Yea, I might also add, I have a son in the military who I am worried to death about. But what can I do?

If the terrorists make a big strike on us again, it will be another of their famous misunderstandings of the situation.

A drastically fatal one.

If a million people are killed, or if New York or Washington gets fenced off as a radioactive wasteland, the people of this country aren't going to suddenly call Michael Moore and Ted Rall and say "lay some irony on them, that'll hurt them."

No, they will be calling for the folks with the big guns to do what they do. And don't waste time discriminating between the moderate guys and the bad guys, takes too much time. Just kill them.

Are we a bloodthirsty nation? I don't think so. But if you push the right button, so will we. These folks have no idea. They flew some planes into some buildings and killed 3,000 people in one day.

We rained fire on Dresden for a night and killed 400,000. One plane, one bomb, and the demolition of a city and 90,000 people.

They talk tough about nuking people, but we've walked that walk. We are not bloodthirsty, but when it comes time to do the killing, we are very thorough.

Michele, thank you for a well written, well constructed, thoughtful post. I think the left forgets, or prefers not to see, that the goal of these people is to kill us and destroy our society. It's simple, they have openly stated their goal. I, for one, choose to resist. I am not interested in why they feel this way, I am only interested in winning. And that is the goal of our current President.

Cathy
I am grateful for your son's selfless service to our great nation. His noble character is something I can only dream of ever achieving. You have already done what I will never be able to do.

I, too, worry for the lives of all our soldiers each day they are at war. Supporting the troops, their morale and their commander-in-chief is what I know I can do in order to minimize the risks to our soldiers and the risk of being attacked again.

Having faith in knowing our country has great people such as you and your son is another thing I am doing.

And, believing that we do have the strength in our character to fight the enemy and in having such strength we will prevail.

"As for me....I spent some quality time at the range last night. Practicing 300 yard headshots with my .308 (thats 7.62 Nato)on the off chance that God forbid, one day they decide to have a little party right here. So you have two choices, join their side and hope they will kill you last, or load some ammo. If you manage to hook up with your "buddies" just wave real hard so I don't shoot you by mistake......"

...."Islam is no religion of peace and their mission is to spread the faith, if by the sword or the gun or the suicide bomb, doesn't seem to matter."...

ummm, how has Christianity been spread over the ages? Remember all the 'savages' that needed to be shown the light? Wiping out most of an indigineous population, like, say North America's, is not a sign of a religion of peace.